


drink too much coffee and think of you often

by juliemolina



Series: mayward week 2020 [1]
Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, bi pope, gay best friends sarah and jj ftw, gay jj, just all the aus basically, kelce is in this bc the obx writers refuse to give him character development, unbeta’d, written for day two of mayward week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:28:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26845903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliemolina/pseuds/juliemolina
Summary: She peers down at him curiously.“What are you doing?”“I’m trying to-fuck.” Pope is still scanning their area intently. “Keep your voice down.”Sarah leans down to shoot him a glare underneath the table, but lowers her voice all the same. “Why are you whispering?”JJ moves his eyebrows upward meaningfully, and then down again. Sarah stares at him blankly, apparently not picking up on the telepathic messages he’s trying to send, which is disappointing to say the least. “Pope is here,” he says finally, and a little begrudgingly.Her expression goes from confused to downright mischievous in a frighteningly short amount of time.“Cute Pope, the one you made a fool of yourself in front of? He’s here?”“Shut up,” he huffs.
Relationships: JJ/Pope (Outer Banks)
Series: mayward week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1958296
Comments: 19
Kudos: 38





	drink too much coffee and think of you often

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this for mayward week 2020 with the prompt “why are you whispering?” + au.  
> honestly i struggled w these prompts which is so stupid bc i literally came up w them...anyway  
> go check out @maywardweek2020 ! we’re posting great content all week so follow to make sure you don’t miss anything :)  
> title from ‘south london forever’ by florence, of course  
> ok let’s get into it

It was Sarah’s fault. 

That’s what JJ tells himself later, anyway, which maybe isn’t entirely true, but definitely makes him feel better about the whole, slightly shitty and majorly embarrassing, situation.

On Thursday night, things had been going well, at least by JJ’s standards. He had actually prepped for his Econ exam and finished his History of Western Philosophy paper, (yes, that was a real class people in college took; JJ couldn’t really believe it either) and had managed to finish it all before two in the morning. There were none of the usual nighttime distractions; no obnoxiously noisy parties happening in the adjacent dorm rooms, no loud pop music being played by his roommate, Kelce. (“It’s good for concentration!” Kelce had defended himself when JJ brought it up. But JJ had heard him attempt to sing along to ‘no tears left to cry’ by Ariana Grande on more than one occasion, so he wasn’t sure how much concentrating Kelce was really doing.)

JJ had nearly drifted off to a peaceful, interrupted sleep for the first time all semester.

But since the universe hates him, apparently, just as he feels his eyes start to close, a loud banging starts on his door.

He groans almost unconsciously, and contemplates stuffing a pillow over his head until the culprit of the banging gives up and moves on to terrorize another sleep deprived college student. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

“JJ!” The voice calls. “JJ!” There’s a sudden burst of laughter from behind the door, before the voice continues in a sing-song tone. “Jay Jayyy!!!”

JJ sighs tiredly and sits up, rubbing at his eyes. The voice is decidedly Sarah’s, and also, decidedly very drunk.

The banging continues. Across the room, Kelce mutters and turns over in his sleep, somehow unaffected by Sarah’s yelling.  _ Lucky fucker, _ JJ thinks, and slowly gets up and crosses the room.

“The door wasn’t even locked,” he says shortly, swinging it open.

Sarah is dressed in a crop top and jean shorts, her mascara smeared and her hair plastered to the back of her neck. 

“Oh,” she giggles, and then burps. Her breath smells distinctively like rum, and maybe...apple juice?

“Jesus,” JJ mutters. “What are you doing here? I’m trying to sleep.”

Sarah rolls her eyes.  ”I know, silly. I was drinking-“

“-clearly-“

“-and I got tired. And cold. And Emaan already left and...” she lets out another small burp. JJ fights the urge to pinch his nose. “And I didn’t want to walk all the way back to South Campus all by myself.”

She’s giving JJ some of the biggest puppy eyes he’s ever seen. He tries to glare back at her, but fails miserably.

“Fine,” he relents. “You can stay here. But you can’t sleep in that.”

He moves to rummage in his drawers for a moment, pulling out a tee shirt and a pair of old athletic shorts.

“Here, get changed.”

Sarah accepts the clothes eagerly, giggling again. “I always knew you wanted to get me undressed.” She gives him an exaggerated wink, and JJ rolls his eyes. 

“You promised last time you would stop flirting with me while you’re drunk. And I’m gay.”

Sarah’s eyes go comically wide. “What?”

He shakes his head tiredly, crawling back into bed and closing his eyes for the second time. A moment later he feels Sarah settle in next to him, tucking one arm around his stomach.

She’s quiet, and JJ’s starting to think she’s fallen asleep, when she lets out a quiet, “I miss him.”

“Who?” JJ says, even though he knows the answer.

“John B.”

“You broke up a month ago, Sarah. You have to stop beating yourself up about it. Plus, he had a really stupid name.”

“Yeah,” Sarah agrees, “he did. He was very pretty though.

“Alright.”

A pause. 

“You’re really gay?”

“Yes, Sarah,” he half laughs. “Really.”

She’s quiet again, but this time JJ’s sure she’s asleep, her breathing even and slow against his back.

“Goodnight,” he whispers, and falls asleep with his legs tangled with Sarah’s, and Kelce still snoring peacefully on the other side of the room.

*

Anyway. Back to everything being Sarah’s fault.

He wakes to the sound of his alarm, familiar and exceedingly annoying, but something feels wrong. The room is too bright, and when JJ looks across the room Kelce is gone.

He reaches for his phone, which is plugged into the wall and still ringing with his alarm, and jolts upward as he reads the time.

“What?” Sarah says blearily. “Who is it?”

“Shit,” JJ groans, and half dives, half rolls over Sarah. He stumbles over to his dresser, tugging on a pair of jeans. He has exactly fifteen minutes before he needs to be at his Econ exam, which means he can either take a very quick shower or stop at the coffee bar in the adjacent building. Today, he decides, coffee outweighs his personal hygiene.

“I gotta go. You have any classes today?” He asks Sarah, shrugging on his jacket.

“Yeah,” she sighs, rubbing her forehead. “American Lit at twelve.”

“You’ll be okay until then?”

She nods. “Good luck on your test. And uh, sorry about last night.”

JJ chuckles. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

He waves to Sarah as he grabs his bag and leaves, making his way down the hall. There are several students milling around, making their way to various classes, and he hurries past them. Thirteen minutes until class starts. 

He makes it to the coffee bar in another two, and sighs in relief when he realizes the line is empty.

There’s only one person behind the counter, a guy around his height sporting a deep green apron and a friendly smile. JJ doesn’t recognize him, but he isn’t surprised; Sarah, who also frequents the coffee bar, had told him last week that they had recently brought in a few new student hires. A small pin clipped to the front of the apron reads ‘Pope’ in small block letters.

“Hey! What can I get you?”

“Oh, um.” JJ scans the menu, mostly out of courtesy, since he orders the same thing every time, much to Sarah’s chagrin. “Medium hot coffee, please. Black.”

The guy, Pope, nods and grabs a cup from a stack on the counter. JJ watches him work, his arms flexing under his tee shirt as he uses the machine. JJ can feel himself getting flustered, which is really not what he needs right now, and he pointedly averts his gaze.

“Here you go.” 

Popes voice startles JJ a moment later, and he’s so surprised he almost doesn’t realize Pope is holding JJ’s coffee out to him, smiling politely. 

“Oh!” He says. “Sorry, I-“ 

JJ takes a step forward, and at the last moment trips, knocking the coffee out of Popes hand. The drink spills out all over the counter, sliding over the side and splashing as it hits the linoleum floor.

“Oh my god,” JJ says, instinctively reaching for the paper cup. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry.”

Pope laughs easily and reaches for a rag tucked away in the pocket of his apron. The muscles of his arm flex as he sops up the coffee, and JJ pulls his eyes away. 

“Hey man, don’t worry about it. It barely splashed me.” Pope flashes him another bright smile, and JJ steps back, nearly stumbling over his own feet again.

“R-right,” he stutters. “I have to-um-“ JJ motions vaguely behind him. Pope is staring at him expectantly, almost like he’s trying to hide his amusement.

“Shit,” he says suddenly, “I forgot to pay you.” 

He reaches into his back pocket, but only finds a twenty dollar bill. Deciding that overpaying is a better alternative to waiting while Pope sorts out his change, he flings it wildly at the counter before turning and all but running in the opposite direction.

He makes it to his exam with four minutes to spare, breathing heavy, the cup still clutched tightly in his hand.

Brendan, whose room is in the same building as JJ’s and always plays Lady Gaga in the shower, eyes him curiously from the seat to his right.

“You okay dude?” 

“Fine,” JJ sighs, sinks into his chair, and rests his head in both his hands.

*

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Sarah is saying over the phone the next day.

“It was  terrible ,” JJ laments. He’s sitting in bed, an array of notes scribbled onto loose leaf paper spread out before him, phone tucked against his ear. “You should’ve seen it. I spilled my drink all over him.”

“He probably thought it was cute,” Sarah adds, rather unhelpfully.

“No. No he didn’t. It was very un-cute. And I’m pretty sure I failed my Econ exam.” 

There’s a clacking on the other end of the line as Sarah types something, before she responds, “I’m sure you did great. And even if cute-coffee-guy-“

“-Pope”

“-even if he hates you now, which I seriously doubt, there are about 15,000 other students on this campus. It’s pretty unlikely that you’ll run into him again. You might have to find a new coffee spot, though.”

JJ frowns, and shuffles his notes back into an uneven pile. “That’s the best place on campus. The coffee by the library tastes like dirt.”

Sarah sighs. “The price we pay for our dignity, I guess.” Then she lets out a breathy yawn. “Damn. Is it only 12:30? I need another coffee, I have Art History at 2:00.”

“Coffee?”

He can almost feel her roll her eyes through the phone. 

“Don’t worry, I won’t go to the place of your Great Coffee Disaster. Here, tell you what. Let me buy you lunch and we can eat together before my class. Sound good?”

He glances down at the abysmal pile of work next to his bag. He should probably keep studying, but he knows this is Sarah’s way of apologizing, and he could really use a break. JJ shakes his head, as if to rid himself of something heavy and clinging to him, and says into the phone, “Yeah. Sounds good.”

*

It’s warm out for April in Boston, so once they have their food he and Sarah claim one of the old wooden picnic tables on the green and lay their takeout in front of them.

Sarah is chewing on the end of an egg roll and looking thoughtful. JJ narrows his eyes.

“What?”

She grins. “Just. I like this for you.”

“What does that mean?”

Sarah wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. It’s reminiscent to her flirtatious expressions during her appearance at his room the other night, and JJ shutters. 

“It means...you haven’t been out on a date since September, and here is a cute boy who is mysterious and maybe single who you had an awkward, but still romcom-worthy run in with.”

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say ‘mysterious’,” JJ shoots back, “I mean, he works at a coffee shop on the campus of a mediocre college. And I can’t think of a single romcom where person A spills coffee all over person B, chucks a twenty at them and runs away.”

“Maybe.” Sarah draws out the word. “But,” sheadds, gesticulating with a chopstick for emphasis, “Maybe we’re writing a new romcom.”

JJ doesn’t have the time or the energy to participate in Sarah’s weird philosophical analyses, so he turns back to look at his textbook.

Then he glances up and immediately dives under the table. 

“Shit. Fuck. Shit.”

Pope is standing across the green. He looks good, in a pair of jeans and a tee shirt instead of the green apron from before, his bag slung casually over one shoulder. He’s studying the area intently, like he’s looking for something. Or someone.

Sarah frowns and taps her chopstick impatiently against the side of her paper food container. JJ is wishing he could confiscate all of her utensils.

She peers down at him curiously.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to-fuck.” Pope is still scanning their area intently. “Keep your voice down.”

Sarah leans further down to shoot him a glare underneath the table, but lowers her voice all the same. “Why are you whispering?”

JJ moves his eyebrows upward meaningfully, and then down again. Sarah stares at him blankly, apparently not picking up on the telepathic messages he’s trying to send, which is disappointing to say the least. “Pope is here,” he says finally, and a little begrudgingly.

Her expression goes from confused to downright mischievous in a frighteningly short amount of time.

“Cute Pope, the one you made a fool of yourself in front of? He’s here?”

“Shut up,” he huffs.

Sarah cranes her neck very obviously to look around the quad, and JJ is contemplating murder from underneath the picnic table. He can’t see a whole lot from his position on the grass, so he just prays that Sarah doesn’t spot Pope and do something drastic like wave, or worse, call him over. 

Thankfully, she’s quiet, and a moment later leans down again to face him.

“Your boyfriend is gone.”

JJ scowls and clambers back onto the bench rather awkwardly. 

“Are you planning on ignoring him forever?” She asks once he’s settled again.

“Yes,” JJ says, indignant. Sarah sighs, but stands and grabs both of their takeout containers to toss into the trash. 

JJ slumps down and lets his head rest against the picnic table. He thinks he’s getting a migraine.

*

It takes two days for JJ’s resolve to crumble.

He sees Pope far too often than he should for the number of students on campus, and after the third time he has to duck behind a bush to hide, he’s starting to think that there must be some kind of higher power with a vendetta against him.

He brings it up with Kelce that night as they both study at their respective desks, ‘sunflower’ by Harry Styles drifting from Kelces phone speaker for what has to be the tenth time this week.

“Am I being a shitty person?” JJ laments, giving up on analyzing poetry and turning to Kelce instead.

“Hmm?”

“You know,” JJ says, and kicks his shoes against the bottom of the desk, “With Pope.”

“Who?”

JJ swivels around in his chair. 

“Kelce. Come on, keep up. Pope, the guy from the coffee shop.”

“Right,” Kelce says, “him.”

“So? What should I do?”

“Um.” Kelce scratches at his chin. “Talk to him?”

JJ scrunches his nose, similarly to the way Sarah always does when she’s presented with a particularly long passage of Steinbeck. 

“Yeah, that’s not really my strong suit.”

“Well unless you want to turn to interpretive dance, talking might be your best form of communication.”

“Okay, fuck you man.”

Kelce shakes his head. 

“You like this guy, right? It’s either you go and talk to him, or you sit around feeling sorry for yourself, forever. It’s your choice.”

The song ends, and JJ lets out a whistle.

“That was pretty dramatic, man. You should be on reality TV.”

“Alright, JJ.”

“You love me.”

“Please shut up.”

*

JJ hates that Kelce is right. He hates even more that he’s taking Kelce’s advice, hears the word in his head with every step he takes towards the little coffee shop;  _hate, hate, hate._

He’s nearly grimacing when he arrives at the counter, but Pope isn’t there. Instead a girl with long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail is refilling a tray with muffins. JJ swallows. 

“Um, hi. Is Pope here?”

The girl, whose name tag reads ‘Kiara’, gives him a once-over, and her eyes sparkle like she’s amused.

“He’s in the back.” She winks at JJ and turns toward the curtain covering the doorway, which leads, presumably, into the back. “Pope! A boy here for you!”

A moment later Pope emerges, wiping his hands on a grey dishrag, and Kiara whispers something in his ear before leaving the same way he came. He shakes his head in her direction, but smiles when he sees JJ.

“Hi there. Hot black coffee, right? Can I get you another one?”

JJ can feel his cheeks starting to flush. “Uh, no. I came to apologize, actually.”

Pope leans across the counter. “For what?”

“Oh, you know. Scalding you with hot coffee whilst simultaneously making a fool of myself. I’m JJ, by the way.”

“Man, I already told you, don’t worry about it. You look cute when you’re flustered, anyway.”

“O-oh.” 

JJ is sure his entire face is red, but Pope just grins and leans down to grab a cup from a stack under the counter. He shuffles around for a minute, and then sets the cup back down.

“Black coffee. Iced, this time.”

JJ laughs. “I feel both appreciated and a little offended.”

“Just take it, JJ.”

Pope holds it out to him, and their hands brush as he accepts it. 

And yeah, JJ is pretty sure this is how he dies. He can already see his tombstone; JJ Maybank, DOB: 3/28/01. Cause of death: cute boys with soft hands.

“Oh,” JJ says suddenly. “I have cash in my bag. Let me just-“

Pope holds up a hand. “It’s on me. Well,  actually, it’s on you, because you way overpaid yesterday.”

JJ fights to keep his blush from returning, and takes a sip from his drink.

“Actually, your coffee yesterday was $2.50, and this is $3, which means you’ve still overpaid by...$14.50. I think it’s only fair that I take you out to lunch to make up for it.”

JJ takes another large sip of his drink and nearly swallows an ice cube whole in his surprise. “What?”

Pope is still grinning, but it wavers for a moment at the corners and JJ realizes for the first time that he is nervous.

JJ falters, trying to come up with a response.

“Uh. Lunch. I think I can do that.”

Pope straightens up.  “Really? Is tomorrow good?”

“Yeah. Really good.”

They’re still staring at each other, smiling, and JJ nods once.

“Okay. I’m gonna go now.”

“Okay.”

JJ waits one more moment, just taking in Pope in his green apron, hands pressed against the counter, and then turns around and walks back through the hall towards his dorm. He feels a rush of adrenaline, like someone’s pumped caffeine directly into his veins. Or maybe it’s just the coffee. 

JJ makes it halfway to his room before he stops in his tracks.

Fuck. He didn’t get Popes number. Was he just supposed to meet Pope back at the shop for lunch? What time were they supposed to meet?

He takes a subdued sip of his coffee, debating whether he should walk all the way back to the shop, when he notices something scrawled across the label on his cup.

It’s a phone number, written in pen, with a small, badly drawn heart next to it.

JJ whips out his phone in the middle of the hallway, ignoring the mutters of a group of guys who jostle past him.

_**hey** _ , he texts as soon as he’s typed in the number, and then immediately second guesseshimself.

_**i found your note.** _

Pope only takes 30 seconds to text back.

_i see that_

_i figured you’d forget to ask for my number_

_** am i that predictable? ** _

_no, i think i’m just a genius and already know everything about you_

_** do you? ** _

_no_

_ not yet, at least  _

JJ pockets his phone, beaming, and runs the rest of the way back to his dorm room. Kelce is not going to believe this.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you guys enjoyed !! ik kie was barely in this but i am considering making a more sarahkie focused part two so lmk if that’s something you would want  
> comments are always appreciated !!


End file.
